But it is not too late to change!  As another old adage states, “You are not dead yet!”.  So get on with it.  Become your own project!  Whatever you have to do (meditate, pray, yoga, run, etc. etc. ) start thinking about who you want to be now in this present moment and be that person.  Remember you create your own reality!  And if there is something in your subconscious mind that is blocking you from being that person, then go get help!  Hire a coach, talk to a friend, read a book but do something to change the course of your life and your weight issues will be a thing of the past!  Know who you want to be and where you are going and you will be a happier more fulfilled person when you arrive!  Blessings for peace and prosperity!

One major way we quicksand ourselves when it comes to food is by overgeneralizing.  When we overgeneralize we take a single set-back in our healthier eating behavioral plan and see it as a never-ending pattern of defeat.  So, when we eat that piece of forbidden pie, skip exercising for a week, or drink an extra glass of wine we label ourselves with words like, “I’m such a jerk.  I never stick to my goals.   I always end up slipping back into my old habits.  There is just no use in me trying to lose this weight.  I will always be heavy and I’ll never be thin.” 

This is stinkin’ thinkin’ at its worse.  Think about it!  Just because you slipped up once, twice, or more, where is the evidence that you will always slip up and that you will never reach your goal?  There is none.  The error is in your mind, not in your genes, and you can control your thoughts. 

Every moment is a new opportunity to choose again.  Stay present.  Choose again to be healthy, thin, or whatever your heart desires.  Just be conscious.  Let go of stinkin’ thinkin’ and you will reach your goal even if you occasionally go somewhere else.  Blessings!

What’s eating you?

If you want to find out more about what type of eater you are, go visit www.amenclinics.com and take the free, short survey that Dr. Amen provides on his site.  You will receive immediate feedback as to what type of eater you are.  Once “named”, you are able to create a Healing Path for yourself.  You may want to visit  www.miraculouslifecoaching.com  for some ideas and/or other resources to create your path or drop me a note at miraculouslifecoaching@yahoo.com and let me know how I can be of service to you.  Blessings!

Thus, when we are constantly on the move, feeling anxious and under pressure to meet our goals and/or are filled with fear, doubt and worry about the future (taking ourselves out of the precious present), we set ourselves up for digestive shutdown and decreased hormonal activity not to mention a long list of possible inflammatory and auto-immune illnesses.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  We can choose a different path.

How do we change course and turn our ship around?  Well, just like Einstein commented that you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it, as long as you remain in a chronic state of high or low level stress, your body will remain in a state of alarm, a survival state, and will attempt to save you from the lion. 

But there is no lion!  You have created a mind-set that thinks a lion is chasing you and since the mind cannot tell the difference between something imagined and something real (imagine sucking on a lemon right now), your body is reacting to the mental image you have placed before it.   

Solution?  Change your mind.  Begin with relaxation practices such as mediation, prayer, hypnosis and deep diaphragmatic breathing exercises.  When you are in a relaxed state, program yourself to like exercise and watch yourself begin to change by exercising more and worrying less.  Also, remember that  thoughts are things and  by challenging your automatic negative thoughts (called ANT’s by Dr. Daniel Amen) that tell us we don’t have enough time, energy, money, or ability to achieve our goals in a more relaxed, healthy way we begin to slay the lion and take charge of our lives.

What does all this have to do with food psychology?  Well, I have felt happy today thinking about these recipes, preparing these foods and now sampling them to see if they are a success!  It makes me feel good to know that if the vegan cake is a hit, when I make a fresh one for my daughter’s birthday, she will feel the love when she takes that first sweet delicious bite! 

And those pumpkin muffins?  I made them with added ground organic flax seed to give them some extra nutrition; so I feel extra good about that!  Now, if the chicken salad is as tasty as I think my new recipe promises, and the chicken parmesan turns out moist and golden, I will have done that little extra special something for my husband (who works about 12 hours a day) too, and I like doing that. 

Yes, there is a lot to the psychology of food in its anticipation, preparing, and enjoying.  But most of all, the joy of food to me is in the giving and I am grateful that I have had the time and opportunity today to prepare foods for my loved ones. 

Just hope that it rains for one more day ~ my other grandsons, who live to far to visit, might just like to see a box of chocolate chip cookies on their doorstep when they get home from school one day this week!

You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that avocados, according to Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo in his book Eat Right 4 Your Type,  are not a “beneficial food” for folks like me who are Type O blood type.  In fact, they are on the Eat Right 4 Your Type  ”Type O Avoid List” as a food that is unfriendly to Type O’s digestive tract.  But, could I give them up?  Yes, I reasoned, I could in order to be without digestive distress.  But would I give them up?   Would I be willing to let go of that delicious, creamy, nutty flavor that I had come to love?  That was the question!  And, if I was willing to let them go, when would I do it? 

For those of you who know the Sedona Method, the practice of ”letting go”, perhaps you recognize the 3 questions that precede the “letting go” process.    So, since I was having digestive difficulties, I gave them up for 3-4 days to see if it made a difference.  And it did!  Within 3-4 days I was feeling signifantly less digestive discomfort.  Then,  after letting go of several other foods on the Avoid List, by the end of 2 weeks I would say I was 98% improved.  I only re-experience mild symptoms when I start eating those foods which according to Dr. D’Adamo’s research and experience inflame and irritate Type O’s bodies (those darn Avoid foods again!). 

What does this have to do with food psychology?  Everything!  When we are confronted with a possible answer to our difficulties, especially when it relates to our eating pleasure, we have to be willing to have an open mind to be able to change a behavior that is currently rewarding.  As I said in the beginning of this post, I love avocados  and I did not want to give them up.  To me eating an avocado is like having dessert and it was hard for me to believe that avocados might be contributing to my digestive distress.  But I did want to get better, didn’t I?  That is the question that I was confronted with and I did respect Dr. D’Adamo’s expertise in the field.  So, I owed it to myself to consider that avocadoes could be the source of my undoing and if I wanted to feel better, it was worth dumping them in favor of feeling good!  The only thing I had to lose was pain and a few days of eating pleasure.  So I did it and I am so glad I did.  Pain free is better than a few moments reward of that smooth, velvety, nutty flavor of a ripe avocado (I told you I love them!).  Anyway Dr. D’Adamo says that once your body has healed after an inflammatory condition, you can always give an offending food another try and if you can tolerate it, eat it occasionally.  And I just might do that.  But right now I am content to let avocadoes go

So, what does this mean for us and how does this apply to how we think about food and how we nourish ourselves?  Here are some of the questions we might ask ourselves.  How do we think about food?  Are we mindful about what we eat, how we eat, where we eat?  Do we attend to what is “eating us”, those thoughts, both fleeting and nagging, that keep us trapped in behavior that sabotages our health?    Is food a source of nourishment for our body, mind and spirit or is it something we just do, “eat to live” so to speak.  Do we fall into the habit of playing “fortune teller” when we think about losing weight by saying something like, “You will never lose weight!  You are just big boned and destined to be heavy.” 

Remember to challenge your faulty thinking and not to believe the constant background chatter of what Zen Buddists call the  “monkey mind”.  Take charge and know that it is mindless chatter, not to be believed, only to be aware of and then let go!  Once you do that, you are on the road to healing and wholeness.  Be persistent with good mental health practices.  As the I Ching instructs, “Correct persistence brings good fortune.”

Everything we discuss on this blog is always being presented in the context of meaningful living.  The ultimate goal of mind-body nutrition and dynamic eating is to create a healthy mind-body balance by observing and reflecting on how you relate to food:  What happens when you think about food and when you eat it?  How aware are you of how those thoughts and feelings are impacting your body and emotions?  Are you aware that your lunch or dinner hour has become a “rush hour”, not sitting down with yourself, family and/or friends and eating mindfully, but rather grabbing something at a sidewalk stand at lunch while you walk to another appointment or staying late at the office pulling something sandwich-like from a cafeteria vending machine?  Do you think that those antacids you are popping are really because you just ate something too spicy or rich, or are you willing tyo consider that there might be a connection between your stress levels, food choices and your current acidic state? 

It has been proven that stress (often experienced by those rushing, rushing, rushing) is a prime factor not only in heart disease, inflammatory disease, etc. but it is also a prime factor in metabolism and weight.  People who live stressful lives, read that as ”distress” and not “eustress”, have a greater tendency to gain weight and keep it than those who practice the “power of slow” when it comes to food and self-nuturing. 

Rx for the Week:  This week become more mindful of how you are eating, where and what you are eating.  Make a conscious decision to slow down!  See how it feels and let us know what you notice!  Have a wonderful week.  Blessings!